the line of distinction is drawn in express words. Persons of
color, in the judgment of Congress, were not included in the word
citizens, and they are described as another and different class of
persons, and authorized to be employed, if born in the United States.

And even as late as 1820, (chap. civ, sec. 8,) in the charter to the
city of Washington, the corporation is authorized "to restrain and
prohibit the nightly and other disorderly meetings of slaves, free
negroes, and mulattoes," thus associating them together in its
legislation; and after prescribing the punishment that may be inflicted
on the slaves, proceeds in the following words: "And to punish such free
negroes and mulattoes by penalties not exceeding twenty dollars for any
one offense; and in case of the inability of any such free negro or
mulatto to pay any such penalty and cost thereon, to cause him or her to
be confined to labor for any time not exceeding six calendar months."
And in a subsequent part of the same section, the act authorizes the
corporation "to prescribe the terms and conditions upon which free
negroes and mulattoes may reside in the city."

This law, like the laws of the States, shows that this class of persons
were governed by special legislation directed expressly to them, and
always connected with provisions for the government of slaves, and not
with those for the government of free white citizens. And after such an
uniform course of legislation as we have stated; by the colonies, by the
States, and by Congress, running through a period of more than a
century, it would seem that to call persons thus marked and stigmatized,
"citizens" of the United States, "fellow-citizens," a constituent part
of the sovereignty, would be an abuse of terms, and not calculated to
exalt the character of an American citizen in the eyes of other nations.

The conduct of the Executive Department of the Government has been in
perfect harmony upon this subject with this course of legislation. The
question was brought officially before the late William Wirt, when he
was Attorney General of the United States, in 1821, and he decided that
the words "citizens of the United States" were used in the acts of
Congress in the same sense as in the Constitution; and that free persons
of color were not citizens, within the meaning of the Constitution and
laws; and this opinion has been confirmed by that of the late Attorney
General, Caleb Cushing, in a recent case,